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Brett Ratner Directing Escape from New York Remake; Gears of War Canned?

A big rumor had been making its way around the internet yesterday from AICN stating that X-Men 3 and Rush Hour 3 director Brett Ratner would be replacing Live Free or Die Hard director Len Wiseman on the Escape from New York remake. News that Wiseman would be directing initially was confirmed back in mid-August. IESB 100% confirmed today that the rumor is true and now the project is doomed for failure, given Ratner is directing.

On top of all that, Len Wiseman has also left the highly-anticipated Gears of War feature film. A rumor that he was directing had never been confirmed anyway and now the word is that project has been entirely scrapped by the studio. Not only has one possibly good remake become an instant disaster, but we've lost what could've been one of the great actions movies this half of the decade.

This is probably one of the worst sets of rumors to discover is true. I used to enjoy Ratner, back during Rush Hour 1 and 2, but then X-Men 3 and then Rush Hour 3 and now I've hopped onto the Ratner-hating bandwagon. If anything, he is clearly the wrong choice when it comes to remaking Escape from New York. A real, gritty director is needed to really deliver the same finesse that Kurt Russell captured in the original and that Gerard Butler will portray in this remake.

You can read up on all the current details and progress of the remake at the article confirming Wiseman was directing (and now isn't) as well as the original article announcing the remake and Gerard Butler from early March. All that anyone should care about now is how bad of a remake this is going to be.

As for Gears of War, IESB has learned that "the studio has concerns with ballooning budget of the film." Second only to the Halo movie and maybe Michael Bay's Prince of Persia, the Gears of War movie was one of the most highly anticipated video game adaptations in the works. Unfortunately the buzz has nearly disappeared thanks to the recent release of Halo 3, however Gears of War for a long time was the most popular Xbox 360 video game and had enough great content to warrant a great movie.

The Gears of War movie was first announced back in March and sounded like one hell of a badass video game project given the Halo movie had been put on indefinite hold and that Prince of Persia hadn't been announced. Now that the rumor about Wisemen directing has been squashed and the movie is feared to be put on indefinite hold, it's looking like a grim future for video game adaptations.

I really don't understand what's wrong with Hollywood and video game adaptations. Somehow Uwe Boll continues to strive and continues to make shitty films, yet the great video game films that should be made never go intro production. The studios always claim that the budget gets too out of hand. Don't they realize there are more video game fans that there are movie fans? If they actually made a big-budget Zelda movie it would probably end up making as much as Spider-Man 3 if not more, and that's a guarantee! When will they realize the potential of the right video game adaptation despite a huge budget? Hopefully sometime soon!

Thanks to SlashFilm for the awesome mock Escape from New York poster above.

Reader Feedback - 6 Comments

Ok.. seriously WTF? I am a huge fan of the original "Escape from..." films but serisously Brett Ratner? Lets see hhe let loose the abomination that is Rush Hour 3 upon us and he raped my childhood with X-Men 3. Now he is gonna ruin this? WHy does god hate me?

CSpuppydog on Oct 5, 2007

3

Oh get a grip. Any movie with the Butler is better than great - even with a director who flopped on the 2nd or 3rd sequal to kid's comic movies. If he's all that bad (Ratner), the Butler will get out of it. He can write his own ticket after 300.

jane m on Oct 5, 2007

4

And by-the-way, Hollywood doesn't make money on most movies based on video games. That's why they don't want to let the budget get out-of-hand and most likely why they had to let Wiseman go.